The City's relationship with DEC continues. The City Home Page was originally put up by DEC, but now the City and DEC each maintains its own part of the Home Page. DEC is working on an agreement with another company that will maintain the DEC Home Page in the future. Elie Chan, on the City Staff, maintains the City Home Page, and trains City Staff in the different Departments on how to provide information about their Departments in HTML format. Each City Department is responsible for updating its own portion of the Home Page. Each Department submits its file in HTML format to Elie. She then posts the information on the Home Page. Only Elie is allowed to post directly on the City's Home Page. The City's Home Page provides links to other non-profit groups in Palo Alto, but does not provide space except for very special cases.
There are over 750 pages of information available on the City's Home Page. There will be a City Council Meeting on April 18, 1955 to discuss and vote on the budget for online communications services, including Internet Access. The City's Home Page could be greatly enhanced to provide two-way communications capability. It can be designed to save some operating costs, and improve the delivery of City Services. Electronic commerce for processing utility bills and doing procurement online may save operating costs, while online processing of building and other permits will improve the delivery of services. Very complex plans for large commercial and industrial buildings will still be handled manually, but preliminary inquiries, forms, and reports can be handled efficiently online.
The current home page received about 200 comments through its Survey Form in the first six months, but now it gets only a few comments per month. Most requests for information are for permits and agendas, plus questions on how Palo Alto got onto the Internet.
How can the City use the Internet to deliver services, and how to make information more available are major areas that are under consideration. Palo Alto is looking at a communications utility that may be partnered, City owned, or some combination. A consultant (ICT), selected by staff and the City Utilities Commission, is looking into the policy issues. Reports are due in April.
There are three libraries with limited public access to the Internet; Mitchell, Main and Children's; plus two work stations in the lobby of the Palo Alto City Hall. There are about 1500 people per day logging on to the City Home Page, with 60-70% local, 15-25 % from Stanford (probably students looking for events and activities), and 5-10% international. The connection is T1. The cost is covered so far by DEC, and in the future will be leased from Alternet. Costs will be defined and provided to the Council during the budget process, and the Council will decide if they want to spend the money.
There will always be security problems with the Internet, so anything the City makes available via the Internet should be assumed to be open to the public. A special level of encryption must be used to make data on the Internet secure, and data security is a prerequisite for conducting commercial transactions on the Internet.
City Council needs encouragement and suggestions from the community as to interest in Internet Access, and the types of information, and other civic groups who can participate. Send your thoughts to the City Council.
Dianah Neff and the PA-Comnet members at the meeting agreed on putting up a Home Page for PA-Comnet as part of the City's Home Page. The PA-Comnet Home Page Committee is composed of Sabrina Lin (Chm), two Webmasters, Sabrina Lin and Kendric Smith, and with the assistance of Keith Cooley, Louis Bookbinder, Mary Jo Levy, Paul Pease and Liza Loop will decide on the style, format, and content of the Home Page. The Home Page will include current and recent minutes.
There will be Federal NTIA grant money available for information networks, but there must be a 50% matching fund, some of which can be in-kind. It is not clear how much of the matching funds must be in cash. Imsong Lee, Bill Hamilton, Tom Abbott, and Harry Saal will look into grant requirements, and how to put together a proposal, in consultation with Dianah Neff.
The next meeting will be Wednesday, March 8 at 7:30.
The formal meeting ended at 8:33 AM, but informal discussions continued.
Several aspects of using and working with the Internet were discussed. There is a need to inform people and small businesses on the availability of access, ways to use the Internet, opportunities, etc. There is a lack of representation from local governments and small business on most of the national organizations dealing with communications and the Internet. There are many ways in which members of PA-Comnet can act or interact in the community.
How do various interest groups get access to the City Home Page? Right now it is limited to organizations that are funded or sponsored by the City. It was suggested that other groups should also be allowed to have a presence on the Home Page. However, if the City opens the door to everyone, where is the line to be drawn, are there legal liabilities, is it moderated, how is it controlled?
The Barron Park Association posts lots of information of either local or general interest, such as flood alerts, traffic counts, zoning and land use issues, etc. Some of these posts are of wider interest, but there is no direct contact with the City. There should be a way for wider access, with clear statements as to who is responsible for the postings and content. What is the public interest, and how do we establish general interest?
A special committee was set up on Internet Access issues. Members will be Margaret Cooley (Chm), Sabrina Lin, Elliot Margolies, and Rich Tucker.
In regard to training, the Recreation Department plans to offer classes on Internet Access. We will have more information about the success of getting teachers at the Thursday Terman meeting. (Several very well qualified people responded, and one was selected to give the class. We have 3 donated 286s from IBM/John Benza via Bob Moss to use for the system ). There must be at least 20 participants. It will meet on two Saturdays at Terman, in the same room that PA-Comnet meets.
Final adjournment was at 9:00 AM.
Submitted by Bob Moss.